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Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

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Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#221

Post by astrange »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #27
CalRobert wrote: post #5

There's a deeply frustrating infantilisation when something is localized in the same language. My kids and I love Bluey, an Australian show, but apparently the producers had to refuse to have it redone with US and UK accents to stop it happening. Never understood what the problem with having David Attenborough instead of Sigourney Weaver narrate Planet Earth was either.

I don't care one direction or the other, but for example Doctor Who is just fine without having to be redone and loved by people in America regardless of the accents. Is there a reason you'd love to see it redone outside of just having the show have more exposure in America? I can understand the sentiment.

Speaking of Doctor Who, David Tennant is the same role in the American remake of Broadchurch and he has the worst American accent I've ever heard. It's set in California and he sounds like he's from everywhere else at the same time.

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#222

Post by Veen »

spoils19 wrote: post #183
BearOso wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It loses a lot of connotation, too. Philosopher's implies abstract, referring to the stone's elusive, impossible nature: having never been discovered, only theorized. In a story where everyone is a sorcerer, it dumbs that down a lot. It could be one of their kidney stones for all it matters.

The American version is more accurate and arguably better - I like to think the title was changed for our heightened intelligence and not the opposite.

Your comment refutes itself.

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#223

Post by adolph »

pvaldes wrote: post #185
Intermernet wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

David Attenborough is by far the most famous nature documentarist in the world. No one comes close. I'm not sure what name would be regarded as bigger.

I would put Jacques Cousteau and Felix Rodríguez de la Fuente in the same league. If we take in mind the risks that they suffered to film nature I would say that they score higher in the epic factor. I'm not denying that Attenborough is a category in himself and a wonderful narrator of course. Freeman and Sigourney are in a different category. Both are excellent actors and narrators in films directed by another peopl…

Some people's work is of a sort that it doesn't get Americanized so much as alter American culture. I'd put both Adams and Cousteau in that class. How could Cousteau be understood through that accent? How could anyone not pay close attention once the accent was decrypted?

By the end of his life, Jacques Cousteau seemed a caricature of himself. The red cap, the thick accent--the Cousteau aesthetic was so overripe that director Wes Anderson used it as the template for The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/water-activi...

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#224

Post by jack_riminton »

beanders wrote: post #153
jack_riminton wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had this too when I was in the US. A waitress didn't understand "bottle of water" so I had to point to it, to which she replied "Oh you mean a boddle of warder"

That’s unfortunate… variations in American accents can differ as much or more than that, so it’s a little surprising she struggled. I hope you don’t judge all Americans by that experience :)

I know I shouldn't but I still do find it surprising how someone speaking English can't understand a well spoken English person!

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#225

Post by stevedh »

mdp2021 wrote: post #181
keybuk wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'-ize' might be preferred by Oxford, but '-ise' is preferred by Cambridge. So I think it needs no explanation which DNA would prefer.

> is preferred by But International English is Oxford, not Cambridge. The convention came to be OED. > So I think it needs no explanation which DNA would prefer I do not understand. "DNA"?

Douglas Noel Adams

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#226

Post by FabHK »

jawns wrote: post #7

His argument about digital watches did not age well. My kids have known how to understand a digital clock since they were toddlers, but even now, in elementary school, they require entire lesson units in school on telling time from a clock face. Beyond that, he argues that pie charts tell us more about the relationship between things than tables of numbers, and a clock face is "the world's most perfect pie chart." Bu…

A similar issue arises in aviation.

In the cockpit, airspeed and altitude used to be presented on a dial like a watch (one hand in the case of airspeed, two hands or even three in the case of altitude).

In modern cockpits with screens, they could be presented like that, or just as numbers, but they are presented as infinite bands that move up and down. One sees the number on it, but also perceives movement (and how fast it moves) "out of the corner of an eye". Maybe it combines the advantages of both.

See here, for example, for both styles: https://www.flight-mechanic.com/pitot-static-pressure-sensin...

I wonder what studies were made regarding this design.

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#227

Post by kergonath »

mrep wrote: post #92
ZoomZoomZoom wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's deeply lamentable that in this day and age one has to resort to throwaway accounts to express their fondness of Sir Attenborough.

? Are you referring to throwaway894345 who has been here for 4.5 years and has 12483 karma? Don't think that is an actual throwaway at this point.

It might have been a joke...

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#228

Post by kergonath »

beanders wrote: post #153
jack_riminton wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had this too when I was in the US. A waitress didn't understand "bottle of water" so I had to point to it, to which she replied "Oh you mean a boddle of warder"

That’s unfortunate… variations in American accents can differ as much or more than that, so it’s a little surprising she struggled. I hope you don’t judge all Americans by that experience :)

From my experience, even people used to variation still struggle when it is the wrong kind of variation. It's a bit difficult to explain but I have seen it happening regularly, including once when I tried to say something about Vancouver and it took a writing down to get it across. The other person was used to one southern American accent, Estuary English and European Globish at least.

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#229

Post by AceJohnny2 »

jawns wrote: post #7

His argument about digital watches did not age well. My kids have known how to understand a digital clock since they were toddlers, but even now, in elementary school, they require entire lesson units in school on telling time from a clock face. Beyond that, he argues that pie charts tell us more about the relationship between things than tables of numbers, and a clock face is "the world's most perfect pie chart." Bu…

Anecdote: my partner can't read analog watches at a glance, they prefer digital displays.

It's a funny little hole in their wide skillset!

Re: Please don’t let anyone Americanise it (1992)

#230

Post by adolph »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #186
joemi wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you found an alien digital clock written in alien language, it would take you forever to figure out anything about it; it would take a while to figure out anything useful even if you knew it was a clock. If you found an alien analog clock, it would be immediately obvious what it was and what it was doing, and you could use it to help you understand the alien digital clock. I disagree with this. This seems to ass…

> I'm not sure there's any reason to make that assumption. analog clocks are modeled around the idea that the time is circular because that's the natural cycle of day and night (same concept of the meridian, plus dark hours, when there is no shadow). I imagine that any alien civilization that lives on a planet that rotates around its star and has a light/dark cycle would measure time in a similar fashion.

> analog clocks are modeled around the idea that the time is circular because that's the natural cycle of day and night

This is not supported by evidence. For one, it would make a 24 hour dial make more sense than a 12 hour one. For two, many early non-discrete clocks took the form of parallax observation or liquid flows and were not inherently circular.

https://muslimheritage.com/the-clocks-of-al-muradi/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_timekeeping_devices

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